Metro school board says it's open to 'innovation' to improve performance

Feb. 26, 2014

Charter school applicant Adam Nadeau, founder of Rocketship Nashville, presented details of his proposals to take over low-performing elementary schools in Nashville to a school board committee on Monday. / Larry McCormack / The Tennessean

Written by

Alan Coverstone

Will Pinkston

Might the same Metro school board that has clashed at times with charter schools hand the keys of a struggling district school to one?

The board could have two suitors for what seems like an unlikely marriage at first glance.

KIPP Nashville, an affiliate of a large national network of charters that is new to such conversions, and Rocketship, a California-based charter organization that has never done so, both have proposals to take control of unidentified, chronically low-performing elementary schools in Nashville.

They’ve responded to something the board said it told charter applicants it wants to consider this year: Either apply to take over struggling schools, the board made clear in a resolution approved in November, or propose only new charters to ease overcrowded elementary schools in South Nashville.

“We have no specific idea about what school or where that would be,” said Rocketship Nashville founder Adam Nadeau, adding that getting the right leaders in place would be key to such an undertaking. “We’d like to have a conversation about how that might work.”

It won’t be clear which schools would be eligible for a takeover until the summer. The board’s 2014 policy applies to charter conversions of schools designated as “target” status for three years in a row according to Metro’s Academic Performance Framework. Based on the last two years of scores, 14 elementary schools could become eligible.

Rocketship has proposed a full takeover of a school, while KIPP would seek to phase in its conversion one grade at a time. KIPP, whose flagship Nashville school is in East Nashville, is looking in that same area. The national KIPP organization, which has 141 schools across 20 states, recently approved its first two takeovers, or what it calls “fresh starts,” in Washington, D.C., and Newark, N.J.

Alan Coverstone, who oversees charters for the district, said bringing in a charter operator can be the “quickest way to change the conditions” of a struggling school. He said the district would work with the school, charter group and community to find the best match.

The board has tapped a charter operator in the past for a takeover. In 2010 it contracted Nashville’s LEAD Academy to go into Cameron Middle School. That, however, was before more recent MNPS developments: being fined $3.4 million for not approving a charter school, floating a legal opinion that questioned the constitutionality of the state’s charter law and officials hinting that low-performing students are perhaps being weeded out of charters.

Will Pinkston, who drafted the new charter-approval parameters, said the board has been “mischaracterized” as a place that is unfriendly to charters, noting that 23 are set to operate here.

“We’re not going to sign onto unabated growth,” Pinkston said, adding: “As far as I’m concerned, this board is all about innovation.”